Once again I am subjecting myself to humiliation for the sake of homemaking science by showing you another nasty appliance in my house.
This time it’s my CHI flat iron.
Why is it so gross you ask? Well, let me tell you. 🙂
I suffer from a serious condition called “poufy bangs” (sad but true) combined with a wicked cowlick.
Unless I straighten them everyday…(sometimes twice a day)…they just look ridiculous.
Problem is…I also use a fair amount of HAIRSPRAY on them and when I use the flat iron on my hairsprayed hair…this is what ends up happening.
A serious case of “gunk build-up”.
The things we do for vanity. 🙂
In the past I would wait until it got REALLY, REALLY bad and then throw it away and get a new one….because I couldn’t find anything that would take it off. One day I was whining about my flat iron follies to my friend Danielle and she suggested I use the edge of a pair of scissors to scrape the gunk off. Afterall, the straightener is made out of CERAMIC. It actually worked quite well and didn’t do TOO much damage to the iron. The slight scarring it did was worth it though, because I didn’t have to buy a new one! An expensive proposition when a CHI retails for $120.00 at WALMART. Of course I didn’t pay that much…thanks to a deal that was posted on Sweet Deals By Jillee! (how’s that for a shameless plug?).
As you can see from the pictures…the “gunk build-up” was approaching a serious level of gross and I was about to attack it with the scissors again when I decided to give my “miracle cleaner“ a try.
Turns out this was hardly even a challenge for the “miracle cleaner”. 🙂 I made my usual paste of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide and started rubbing it in with my fingers. It immediately took all but the thickest parts of gunk off with hardly any effort at all. You can see from the pictures how the paste becomes discolored as it starts to “soak up” the dirt. It took some “elbow grease” to get the tough spots off…but eventually I did.
This is what it looked like “AFTER”.
The main difference cleaning this small appliance vs. other things I’ve cleaned with the “miracle cleaner” was making sure I didn’t get any cleaner or water inside the iron that would mess up the electrical stuff.
So I was careful to keep the cleaning mixture just on the plates themselves and then I used a wet rag to wipe it all off when I was done instead of rinsing it. It’s still working like a champ at taming my unruly poufy bangs, so I must have done OK.
If you look close, you can still see where my previous attempts with the scissors did their damage. I point this out so you won’t think the “miracle cleaner” did that. Nope, it was dopey me. But despite the unfortunate scissor scars….my CHI looks and feels like new!
And that’s today’s….
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